Wild

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. After her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea: vague, outlandish, and full of promise.

Colin says:"An Exceptional Story"

Powerful and Honest

After her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage destroyed, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. Four years later she hiked 1,100 miles solo on a journey that was to madden, strengthen and ultimately heal her. Starring Reese Witherspoon, the film adaptation of this No.1 best-selling memoir has taken Hollywood by storm with 2 Oscar nominations.

Canoeing The Congo: First Source to Sea Descent of the Congo River

Canoeing the Congo narrates the journey of Phil Harwood, who undertook an epic five-month solo attempt to canoe the Congo River in war-torn Central Africa. It was a historic 'first descent' from the true source in the highlands of Zambia. Just short of 3,000 miles long, the Congo River is the eighth longest in the world and the deepest river in the world, with a flow rate second only to the Amazon. Along the way, Phil encountered numerous waterfalls, huge rapids, man-eating crocodiles, hippos, aggressive snakes...

Notes From a Small Island

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such best sellers as The Mother Tongue and Made in America, decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while. This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland, and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him.

A Walk in the Woods

The Appalachian Trail covers 14 states and over 2,000 miles, snaking through some of the most spectacular landscapes in America. Reluctant adventurer Bryson recounts his gruelling hike along the longest continuous footpath in the world.

Down Under

Australia has more things that can kill you than anywhere else. Nevertheless, Bill Bryson journeyed to the country and promptly fell in love with it. The people are cheerful, their cities are clean, the beer is cold, and the sun nearly always shines.

The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern-day travel industry and a taste for the darkest of places.

Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998

Travelling to Work is the third volume of Michael Palin's widely acclaimed diaries. After the Python years and a decade of filming, writing and acting, Palin's career takes an unexpected direction into travel, which will shape his working life for the next 25 years. Yet, as the diaries reveal, he remained ferociously busy on a host of other projects throughout this whirlwind period.

The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America

Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.

Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days

In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.

Notes From a Big Country

After moving back to the States, Bryson started to write a column for The Mail on Sunday Night and Day magazine. This is a collection of these column entries. Bryson writes about everything from everyday chores, to suing people, the beach, TV, movies, air conditioners, college, Americana, injury dangers, wasting resources, and holiday seasons.

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

In The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads, and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes crisscrossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of song lines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place.

Neither Here nor There

In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.

Dave Gorman Vs The Rest of the World

Remember when you were a kid, and you used to go round to a friend's house to see if they were playing? Well, as adults we're not supposed to do that. Which is a shame... because Dave Gorman likes playing. He REALLY likes games. So he knocked on the biggest door you could ever imagine - the internet - and asked 76,000 people if they fancied a game. This is the story of what happened next.

Running with the Kenyans

After years of watching Kenyan athletes win the world's biggest races, Adharanand Finn set out to discover just what it was that made them so fast - and to see if he could keep up. Packing up his life he moved from Devon to Iten, in Kenya, to eat with, interview, sleep beside and - most importantly - run with, some of the greatest runners in the world. In the distance rests his dream, to join the best of the Kenyan athletes in an epic first marathon across the Kenyan plains.

Made in America

In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.

Michael Palin: Full Circle

The third and most ambitious of Michael Palin's adventures is a voyage of epic proportions - the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim. He travels for almost a year through the 18 countries that border the world's largest ocean, and is forced to negotiate mountains, plunging gorges, cross glaciers and dodge icebergs. Volcanoes also mark Palin's journey. He climbs one which has freshly erupted and follows great rivers like the Yangtze and the Amazon to some of the most remote places on earth.

Into the Wild

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.

Himalaya

Michael Palin reads his own account of an epic journey across the Himalaya. The greatest mountain range on earth, it includes the Khyber Pass and the Silk Road, the mighty peaks of Everest and K2, and the gorges of the Yangtze. He passed through a fascinatingly mixed bag of countries: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, and secretive mountain kingdoms like Nepal, as well as one of the most volatile regions in the world, Kashmir.

Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.

Shadow of the Silk Road

Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across Northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron undertakes a journey along the greatest land route on earth: the Silk Road. Travelling 7,000 miles in eight months, he traces the passage not only of trade and armies, but of ideas, religions and inventions.

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Whilst in Ireland for an International Song Competition, Tony Hawks was amazed to see a hitch-hiker, trying to thumb a lift, but with a fridge. This seemed amazingly optimistic - his Irish friends, however thought nothing of it at all. 'I had clearly arrived in a country', writes Tony, 'where the qualifications for 'eccentric' involved a great deal more than that to which I had become used'. Two years pass but the fridge incident haunts our author.

Michael Palin: world traveller

Michael Palin: Full Circle

The third and most ambitious of Michael Palin's adventures is a voyage of epic proportions - the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim. He travels for almost a year through the 18 countries that border the world's largest ocean, and is forced to negotiate mountains, plunging gorges, cross glaciers and dodge icebergs. Volcanoes also mark Palin's journey. He climbs one which has freshly erupted and follows great rivers like the Yangtze and the Amazon to some of the most remote places on earth.

Michael Palin: Pole to Pole

In Pole to Pole we join Michael Palin on the second of his epic challenges. Travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, he experiences every extreme the globe has to offer. As he crosses 16 countries by train, truck, raft, Ski-Doo, barge, balloon and bicycle, he meets a diverse range of fascinating characters and landscapes while his own endurance is tested to the limit. With his customary aplomb, he plunges himself into the local cultures, starring in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attending a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, and consulting an Mpulugu witch-doctor.

Michael Palin: New Europe

Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a new Europe. Michael Palin's New Europe starts with a simple idea: that only a couple of hours from home are a half of Europe that is for him as unknown and unexplored as the plateau of Tibet or the vastness of the Sahara. Cut off for most of his life by Cold Wars and Iron Curtains, Europe's eastern lands are now open for business - and Michael sets off to discover them.

Himalaya

In his most challenging journey to date, Palin tackles the Himalayas, the greatest mountain range on earth. It is a virtually unbroken wall of rock stretching 1,800 miles from the borders of Afghanistan to south-west China. Penetrated but never conquered, it remains the world's most majestic natural barrier, a magnificent wilderness that shapes the history and politics of Asia to this day.

Brazil

Michael Palin journeys to a vast country of unimaginable contrasts - Brazil. An economic powerhouse, it is host to a staggering variety of peoples. He starts his journey in the north, in the remote mountains and forests on the border with Venezuela, and finishes in the south at the legendary Iguaçu Falls. He travels by river-boat, float-plane and foot to visit tribes deep in the jungle, samples life in the agricultural and mining heartland of Brazil, experiences the modernism of Brasília and the heady mix of Rio de Janeiro, and ventures into the favelas.

Michael Palin: Sahara

Michael Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel from the North to the South Pole, and circle the countries of the Pacific Ocean, but perhaps the greatest single challenge he has faced is his latest: a crossing of the vast and merciless Sahara Desert. As the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not only the emptiness of endless sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes, and a long history of civilisation, trade, commerce, and conquest.

This serves as the third volume of a series covering the amazing 50 states. It looks at the facts about each state, its history, and interesting little tidbits of information about each. In this volume Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa are covered.

Travel Tales Monthly: No. 8 FEB 2015

The February 2015 issue samples the sorts of cons and scams experienced by travelers - their quest to travel safely, securely, and relatively comfortably, without falling victim to the innumerable schemes, scams, shams, and rip-offs perpetrated upon them at just about every turn in their travels (as well as, all too often, even in their own home countries).

Phenomenal: A Hesitant Adventurer's Search for Wonder in the Natural World

Heartfelt and awe inspiring, Leigh Ann Henion's Phenomenal is a moving tale of physical grandeur and emotional transformation, a journey around the world that ultimately explores the depths of the human heart. A journalist and young mother, Henion combines her own conflicted but joyful experiences as a parent with a panoramic tour of the world's most extraordinary natural wonders.

Darwin & Australia's Northern Territory: Travel Adventures

Following are a few brief excerpts from this guide, written by a lifelong resident of Australia. She covers everything you might want to know about this part of Australia - guaranteed! The places to stay, from budget to luxury, rentals to B&Bs; the restaurants, from fast food to the highest quality; the beachwalks and bushwalks; the wildlife and how to see it; exploring the country by air, on water, by bike, and every other way.

My City, My Los Angeles: Famous People Share Their Favorite Places

What do famous people love to do during their free time in Los Angeles? Angelenos and other notables have their rituals that connect them to the city in a unique way: favorite restaurants, museums, beaches, parks, markets, landmarks, haunts, and hideaways. The activities are as diverse and eclectic as the city itself. My City, My Los Angeles gives listeners something truly unique - a chance to experience LA the way the city's most notable luminaries do.

Honolulu, Waikiki & Oahu

Each year 4.6 million tourists visit Oahu, of whom 3.2 million stay exclusively on Oahu. Another 780,000 tourists visit the Big Island; 800,000 visit Maui; and 530,000 go to Kauai. All tourists come through Oahu because the major airport and deepwater port are there. This is the most thorough guide to the island available, with candid hotel reviews based on personal inspections. Lavish beachfront resorts, rainforest B&Bs, condos, and much more are covered.

The Wander Year: One Couple's Journey Around the World

Mike McIntyre and his longtime girlfriend, Andrea, are in their early 40s and itching for a break. So they rent out their San Diego home - dog, cat, and furniture included - and embark on a yearlong journey around the world. "We're not out to find ourselves, or even to lose ourselves," McIntyre writes. "We're merely seeking a pause in our routines." But the couple is soon swept up in the adventure of a lifetime.

Kidnapped by Nuns: And Other Stories of a Life on the Radio

Take a journey over the last four decades of news, from Hollywood to Washington and around the world, from Andorra to Zimbabwe. Ride the campaign plane with Ronald Reagan; get the inside story of why Congress is such a disaster; and share adventure travel stories from a globetrotting correspondent. Retired CBS news correspondent Bob Fuss has traveled with half a dozen presidents and covered Congress for more than 20 years.

Golf Resorts in the Caribbean: Where to Play and Where to Stay

Golf resorts - it's a specialized niche for a savvy group that knows what it wants. What they want is golf, so the Nicols have devoted pages of attention to yardage and par, green fees, and special course features for hundreds of golf courses in the Caribbean. But there are other factors to consider as well, because the point here is to take a vacation, a golf vacation, where you get to luxuriate in your scenic vistas, eat your sumptuous meals, and play your 18 holes, too.

Castles in Scotland Volume II: A Travellers' Guide

I love Scotland. A beautiful, scenic country with much to recommend it to the tourist. And the history is a big part of that. And a huge contribution to the history of Scotland are the many magnificent castles throughout the land. I'm interested in both (history and castles) so what better way to illustrate that than a book about castles in Scotland. I've already written one which is available on Kindle and now here is Volume II for your enjoyment.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Portuguese

Finally language help that opens the world to the special-needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where you want to go with confidence. Each instructional audio is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: German (English and German Edition)

Finally, language help that opens the world to the special needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where YOU want to go with confidence. Each instructional program is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Greek

Finally language help that opens the world to the special-needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where you want to go with confidence. Each instructional program is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Spanish

Finally, language help that opens the world to the special needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where YOU want to go with confidence. Each instructional CD is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Japanese

Finally, language help that opens the world to the special needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where you want to go with confidence. Each instructional program is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Italian

This exclusive new audiobook puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where you want to go with confidence. Each instructional book is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

RX: Freedom to Travel Language Series: Russian

Finally, language help that opens the world to the special needs traveler! This exclusive new audio series puts key words and phrases you need for nutrition, access, or medical assistance in easy reach so you can go where you want to go with confidence. Each instructional audiobook is packed with entertaining lessons and practical terms you can use in any away-from-home situation.

Desert Rats: Adventures in the American Outback

For the first time in recorded history, the complete short stories of the infamous Chinle Miller have been compiled in a book that the publisher hopes won't get anyone arrested (especially the publisher). Come sit around the campfire with an archaeologist after he unwittingly brings a unique curse upon himself; watch Ernie, the county road supervisor, accidentally bomb his own highway shed; discover a cryptic form of rock art just in time for it to save your life.

Great American Wilderness: Touring America's National Parks

This text provides a practical guide to the great American national parks, how to avoid the crowds, the walking tours, facilities and how to get there. This edition has been expanded to include 49 parks, information on accommodation and dining, camping and tours.

Budapest & Its Surroundings: Travel Adventures

Here is a brand new second edition that has been fully updated. The author is a long-time resident of Budapest, who knows the region intimately and takes us behind the scenes to discover its best features the sights, the places to stay and eat, the shopping, and all the activities. Millions of people every year hike into, bike, drive, or climb into the green valleys and limestone mountain ridges of Hungary s national parks and the hills.

Canoeing The Congo: First Source to Sea Descent of the Congo River

Canoeing the Congo narrates the journey of Phil Harwood, who undertook an epic five-month solo attempt to canoe the Congo River in war-torn Central Africa. It was a historic 'first descent' from the true source in the highlands of Zambia. Just short of 3,000 miles long, the Congo River is the eighth longest in the world and the deepest river in the world, with a flow rate second only to the Amazon. Along the way, Phil encountered numerous waterfalls, huge rapids, man-eating crocodiles, hippos, aggressive snakes...

The Dark Tourist: Sightseeing in the World's Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations

Ever since he can remember, Dom Joly has been fascinated by travel to odd places. In part this stems from a childhood spent in war-torn Lebanon, where instead of swapping marbles in the schoolyard, he had a shrapnel collection -- the schoolboy currency of Beirut. These early experiences left Dom with a profound loathing for the sanitized experiences of the modern-day travel industry and a taste for the darkest of places.

Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation.

Scary Monsters and Supercreeps

Dom Joly sets off round the world again, but this time he's not looking to holiday in a danger zone - he's monster hunting. In Scary Monsters and Super Creeps he heads to six completely different destinations to investigate local monster sightings.

Walking the Camino: A Modern Pilgrimage to Santiago

In May 2006, armed only with a small rucksack and a staff, Tony Kevin, an overweight, sedentary, 63-year-old former diplomat, set off on an eight-week trek across Spain. But this was not just a very long walk - it was a pilgrimage. From Granada, in the southeast, to Santiago de Compostela, in the far northwest, Tony followed the Via Mozarabe and the Via de la Plata, two of the many pilgrim trails that crisscross Spain and Portugal and that all lead to a single destination.

On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads

Guided by a Kazakh aphorism - "To understand the wolf, you must put the skin of a wolf on and look through its eyes" - adventurer Tim Cope undertook a journey not successfully completed since the days of Genghis Khan: He traveled by horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe, from the ancient capital of Mongolia to the Danube River in Hungary.

Everest 1953: The Epic Story of the First Ascent

On the morning of 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the first news ebbed through to the British public of a magnificent achievement: Everest had finally been conquered. Drawing on first-hand interviews and unprecedented access to archives, this is a groundbreaking new account of that extraordinary first ascent. In a thrilling tale of adventure and courage, Mick Conefrey reveals that what has gone down in history as a supremely well-planned attempt was actually beset by crisis and controversy, both on and off the mountain.

One More Day Everywhere: Crossing Fifty Borders on the Road to Global Understanding

In 2001, martial arts-trained biker Glen Heggstad began a journey from California to the tip of South America on his motorcycle and made it as far as Colombia, where he was kidnapped by local rebels and held captive. Undeterred by more than a month of traumatic incarceration, the 'Striking Viking' finished his trip after being released. Three years later he set out into the world on his bike again, this time searching for truth on his own terms in a world that had become strangled by a climate of fear.

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day.

The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China

Far from the glittering cities of Beijing and Shaghai, China's borderlands are populated by around one hundred million people who are not Han Chinese. For many of these restive minorities, the old Chinese adage "the mountains are high and the Emperor far away", meaning Beijing's grip on power is tenuous and its influence unwelcome, continues to resonate.

À La Mod: My So-Called Tranquil Family Life in Rural France

Ian Moore is a stand-up comedian in the UK and a husband, father of three boys, farmhand and chutney-maker in France. He is a mod in both walks of life and most of his time is spent travelling grumpily between the two. Comedian, mod and professional grump Ian Moore has had enough. Tired of being unable to park anywhere near his cramped house in a noisy town he doesn't like, he hatches a plan to move his wife and young son to a remote corner of the Loire Valley in search of serenity and space.

My Friend the Mercenary

James Brabazon is narrating this story of war, violence, and political intrigue. He wanted a war. And, for his sins, he got one. James Brabazon was an ambitious young war reporter when he entered the chaos of the Liberian Civil War in 2002. Running with the infamous LURD rebels, he survived numerous deadly ambushes, the privations of dysentery and a dramatic two hundred-mile escape from Government troops through dense equatorial jungle. He even had a bounty put on his head.

Die Trying: One Man's Quest to Conquer the Seven Summits

In early 2003, a young Wall Street investment banker named Bo Parfet set out to accomplish something very few had done before - climbing the highest mountain on every continent. He was not a professional climber, but what began as a casual interest would soon become a lifelong passion and in just over four years, Bo would overcome the odds and conquer all of the mountains - Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Denali, Vinson Massif, Elbrus, Carstenz Pyramid, Kosciusko, and Everest - with courage, unbridled passion, and determination.

A Year Without Make-Up: Tales of a 20-Something Traveler

At 25 years old Stephanie Yoder was already fed up with the monotony of 9-5 life. After much agonizing, she quit her stable desk job to backpack around Asia. During a year of travel through Japan, China and South East Asia she became a minor Chinese celebrity, was attacked by giant parrots and met the love of her life. In A Year Without Make-Up, Yoder chronicles some of her craziest adventures along with providing helpful tips and encouragement for others looking to make a life change.

Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul: Stories of Adventure, Inspiration and Insight to Celebrate the Spirit of Travel

Whether your idea of travel at its finest is trekking through Europe with a backpack, a map and a foreign-language dictionary; road-tripping across America in a fully loaded RV; or cruising the Caribbean aboard a luxury liner, Chicken Soup for the Traveler's Soul celebrates the people you'll meet, the lands you'll discover and the lessons you'll learn. Like traveling itself, the stories in this book will take you on a journey of adventure, insight, and discovery. Through the real-life experiences of others, you'll see that regardless of the destination, it is the journey that provides the fondest memories.

I Wouldn't Start From Here: The 21st Century and Where it All Went Wrong

I Wouldn't Start From Here is Andrew Mueller's personal memoir of the 21st century so far. It features any number of exotic locations, and a cast of revolutionaries, rock stars, politicians, hitmen, warmongers and peacemakers. Between ducking for cover in Gaza, running roadblocks in Iraq, getting arrested in Cameroon and hanging out with Hezbollah, this is a search for an answer to perhaps the key question of our time: "What is it with these people?"

Mud, Sweat and Gears: Cycling From Land's End to John O'Groats (via the Pub)

As Ellie's 50th birthday approaches and her ambitions of a steady income, a successful career and an ascent of Everest seem as far away as ever, she begins to doubt she's capable of achieving anything at all. So when her best friend Mick suggests a gruelling cycle ride from Land's End to John o'Groats, she takes up the challenge. They opt for the scenic route which takes them along cycle paths, towpaths and the back roads and byways of Britain, unable to resist sampling beers in the pubs they pass along the way.

The Hairy Hikers: A Coast-to-Coast Trek Along the French Pyrenees

Fuelled by a degree of mid-life crisis and the need to escape, albeit temporarily, the dull routine of modern life, David and Rob set out to walk from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, taking in French villages, beautiful scenery, and one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in Europe. Just about perfect - if you can put aside the inevitable conflict, drama, and unexpected tedium that results from two men spending over seven solid weeks in each other's company!

Tracking Bodhidharma: A Journey to the Heart of Chinese Culture

The life of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, has, with the passing of time, been magnified to the scale of myth, turning history into the stuff of legend. Known as the First Patriarch, Bodhidharma brought Zen from South India into China in 500 CE, changing the country forever. In Tracking Bodhidharma, Andrew Ferguson recreates the path of Bodhidharma, traveling through China to the places where the First Patriarch lived and taught. This sacred trail takes Ferguson deep into ancient China.

The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City

As a kid growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father they called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line and ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood there. Decades later, Helmreich teaches university courses about New York, and his love for exploring the city is as strong as ever. Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs - an astonishing 6,000 miles.